Composting the Laundry

Today is laundry day.

In a house with six people, laundry day occurs frequently, but always Wednesday plus all the ’emergency’ loads of clothing, towels, sheets, whatever. There’s an ’emergency’ load on Mondays. One on Friday because that is when the twins bring home their nap towels and my older daughter has her horseback lesson, and my husband brings home his week’s worth of gym clothes and towels. Sometimes an emergency load after a full day of soccer games on Saturday. However, it is too depressing to think of them as scheduled. I won’t do it. As long as we call it ’emergency’ that means that it might be an isolated event. We have one laundry day. Wednesday. That is all I can handle.

Here is a picture of today’s START. About six feet of foldable clothing. That is, the FIRST load I ran PLUS what was in the dryer when I opened it to put the washed clothes in. Huh. Wonder how long that has been there. There is another load running right now. And, the whites are patiently waiting their turn. Well, the socks may be partying. You know socks, always trying to pair up. (I’m sorry. Really sorry. I can’t help myself sometimes.) At least said socks are contained (mostly) in their bin while they wait to ride the whirligig cleaning machine.

I took a break from laundry to cancel my husband’s massage appointment. That might sound vindictive, but I scheduled it to be nice and then promptly received the soccer tournament schedule and, of course, the championship game was scheduled for the exact time. No pressure, my son, but if you don’t make it to the tournament game, someone’s not going to be happy.

I took another break to get my flu shot. Ran home and switched washer to dryer and then headed off to a budget meeting for the fitness class I teach. This day is really a barrel of fun, right? Sorry, back to laundry.

Apparently the person doing laundry (me) had been taking the clothing from on top instead of in order of oldest because I couldn’t help but notice that I am washing bathing suits today. It’s 59 degrees today. I reminded myself that it was really hot here in Baltimore a couple days..weeks… ago. I kept going down towards the bottom of the laundry and the clothing was getting warmer. HOLY MACKEREL, I thought, THE LAUNDRY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BIN HAS BEEN SITTING SO LONG THAT IT HAS STARTED TO COMPOST. I expected to see shirts missing sleeves and turning…whatever color compost turns. And, it would certainly explain the smell at the bottom of the bin!

But, um, the bin sits on top of the dryer and I’d been running the dryer.

Feel free to mock me now.

The point I think we should take away from this incident is COMPOSTABLE LAUNDRY. You design what you want on your computer, print it out with one of those 3-D printer things. Wear it. Shred it. Put shreds back into textile bin. Print your new outfit for the next day. Mother never has to deal with 6 feet piles of clothing ever again. You can print different color sheets to match your pjs. It’s going to happen. JUST CALL ME BRILLIANT. Even if the thought came because I thought my laundry was, without any actual leaves, banana peels or dirt, decomposing in my bin.

I know, you thought this couldn’t possibly be an actual post about laundry. But, it is. What can I say? I’ve got to go fold another load.